A former investment manager has failed in his bid to get an employment tribunal to confirm that he was, in fact, an employee of Walker Crips Investment Management and not self-employed as was set out in his contract.
Anthony Manning joined Walker Crips from JM Finn in April 2015 as a self-employed associate/agent, responsible for his own tax and national insurance contributions.
He was terminated in January 2021 after Walker Crips concluded it could no longer certify him as a ‘fit and proper’ person under the FCA Senior Managers Certification Regime (SMCR) and CISI Statement of Professional Standing (SPS) licence to practice.
At the tribunal, Manning was challenging the lawfulness of Walker Crips’ decision – but his status as a ‘worker’ needed to be established before he could do so.
Employed or self-employed?
Throughout his employment at Walker Crips, Manning was self-employed for tax purposes and continues to be so at his new company, Dowgate Capital.
At Walker Crips, Manning was responsible for growing his own client base and was not assigned any clients by the firm. When he left JM Finn, he brought with him between £50-60m in funds under management. This had grown to roughly £80-85m by the time he left the firm.
Within the confines of Walker Crips’ compliance regime, Manning had significant but not unlimited freedom in how he served his clients.
In April 2018, Walker Crips contracts were reviewed by external advisers in light of the introduction of IR35 legislation, which seeks to ensure that self-employed workers are genuinely self-employed and not participating in tax avoidance schemes.
The advisers concluded that Walker Crips’ nominally self-employed workers were probably genuine.
But Manning argued that, despite what was stated in his contact, he was a de facto employee given he, among other things, only worked for Walker Crips, was integrated into the workforce, used a company email address and represented the business at social events.
One key point of contention was the use of a ‘substitute’ to provide cover where Manning or another self-employed agent was unavailable. But the judge concluded that this arrangement did not mean Manning was a ‘worker’ within the statutory definition.
Employment judge Stout ultimately concluded that Manning did not qualify as a worker.
“Although [he] was for the most part fully integrated into [Walker Crips], the fact that he was not subject to [Walker Crips’] employee disciplinary policy, and was appraised only from a regulatory perspective rather than more broadly are elements that also point away from employee/worker status.”
The judge added that Manning could have worked with other investment management platforms but chose not to, he was free to pick his hours of work and holidays, bore all the financial risks associated with the business he undertook and bore many of his own business expenses underscored his self-employed status.
